Indonesia

Indonesia is a treasure chest of biodiversity; it is home to between 10 and 15 per cent of all known species of plants, mammals and birds. Orang-utans, elephants, tigers, rhinoceroses, more than 1,500 species of birds and thousands of plant species are all a part of the country's natural legacy.

The mass destruction of Indonesia's rainforests and carbon-rich peatlands for palm oil and paper threatens this and is the main reason why Indonesia is one of the world's largest emitters of climate changing greenhouse gases.

The lives of millions of Indonesians who depend on the forests for food, shelter and livelihoods are also changing beyond recognition as the forest disappears.

This destruction also threatens our wider world; peatlands are perhaps the world's most critical carbon stores, and Indonesia's peatlands are vast, storing about 35 billion tonnes of carbon. When these peatlands are drained, burned and replaced by plantations, carbon dioxide is released and the conditions are set for devastating forest fires, which were responsible, for instance, for Singapore's 'haze wave' in 2013.

The latest updates

Indonesia's forests are the third largest in the world and its swamp-like peatlands are one of the world's biggest carbon stores. But decades of forest clearance to make way for industrial scale plantations is creating a tinderbox. Smoke from...

Procter & Gamble, makers of Head & Shoulders shampoo, continues to source the palm oil found in it's products from suppliers involved with destruction of Indonesian rainforests, home to the last 400 Sumatran tigers left in the wild.

Every year, thousands of hectares of Indonesian rainforest and peatlands are being destroyed to make way for new palm oil plantations. We don't have to clear forests for palm oil - solutions exist and come companies are on track to supply clean,...

The small holder palm oil project run by the farmers of Dosan village in Riau (Sumatra, Indonesia) is demonstrating that sustainable palm oil production and protection of Indonesia's remaining rainforest can go hand in hand.